Loving Kindness (Metta)
At heart, loving-kindness means contribution. It is the deep desire in all of us to help ALL sentient beings be happy and free. Loving-kindness is the recognition of interdependence – understanding the truth that we are all connected, and ultimately, all one. Loving-kindness is generosity… not giving material things but rather a generosity of spirit – freely giving our compassion, kindness, understanding, and empathy. Loving-kindness imparts to equanimity its selflessness, its boundless nature and even its fervor.
Sympathetic Joy (Mudita)
Not only to compassion, but also to joy with others open your heart! Sympathetic joy holds compassion back from becoming overwhelmed by the sight of the world’s suffering, from being absorbed by it to the exclusion of everything else. Sympathetic joy relieves the tension of mind, soothes the painful burning of the compassionate heart. It keeps compassion away from melancholic brooding without purpose, from a futile sentimentality that merely weakens and consumes the strength of mind and heart. Sympathetic joy develops compassion into active sympathy.
Compassion (Karuna)
Compassion is the basis of all morality. The world suffers. But most men have their eyes and ears closed. They do not see the unbroken stream of tears flowing through life; they do not hear the cry of distress continually pervading the world. Compassion guards equanimity from falling into a cold indifference, and keeps it from indolent or selfish isolation. Compassion does not allow that love and sympathetic joy shut themselves up against the wide world by confining themselves to a narrow sector of it. Compassion prevents love and sympathetic joy from turning into states of self-satisfied complacency within a jealously-guarded petty happiness.
Equanimity (Upekkha)
Equanimity is a perfect, unshakable balance of mind, rooted in insight. Looking at the world around us, and looking into our own heart, we see clearly how difficult it is to attain and maintain balance of mind. Looking into life we notice how it continually moves between contrasts: rise and fall, success and failure, loss and gain, honor and blame. Equanimity helps us to respond to all, maybe it be happiness, sorrow, delight and despair, disappointment and satisfaction, hope and fear. With Equanimity we know that they are passing impermanent emotions without substance. Equanimity required has to be based on vigilant presence of mind, not on indifferent dullness. True equanimity possess power of resistance and self-renewal that is in a rooted insight. How can we erect the building of our lives in the midst of this ever restless ocean of existence, if not on the Island of Equanimity. Equanimity is the crown of our existence.
